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Britain has issued an unprecedented condemnation of UN Human Rights Council bias against Israel – threatening to vote against every motion on the conflict if the situation remains unchanged.

The UNSRC – which includes some of the worst abusers of human rights in the world – has issued a total of 135 resolutions against specific countries in its history. Sixty eight have targeted the Jewish state, including five out of 10 in the current session.

“Justice is blind and impartial. This selective focus on Israel is neither,” said a statement from the UK mission to the UN.
The UK today backed two resolutions “according to long-standing policy” and “serious concerns” about settlement expansion, demolitions and use of administrative detention. It abstained on a further two motions and voted against one calling for the return of the Golan Heights to Syria.

A statement said: “We must also recognise the continuing terrorism, incitement and violence that Israel faces. According to the Quartet’s report last year, there were 250 terrorist attacks, leading to the deaths of at least 30 Israelis. Renewed Hamas efforts to rebuild their tunnels are a grave concern. The scourge of anti-Semitic incitement and glorification of terrorism continue. And for as long as terrorists are treated as martyrs, peace will prove distant.”

United Nations Human Rights Council

The UK shares the frustration of the UNHRC about lack of progress towards peace, it said. And while offering its “full support” to the body as an “international institution” because of the importance of human rights, it berated the body for not discussing incitement and terror and insisted its approach was making peace harder to achieve.

The statement said: “The persistence of bias, particularly the disproportionate volume of resolutions against Israel, undermines the Council’s credibility as the globally focused and objective international human rights body we all want and need.

“Israel is the only country permanently on the Human Rights Council’s agenda. Nowhere is the disproportionate focus on Israel starker and more absurd than in the case of today’s resolution on the occupation of Syria’s Golan. Syria’s regime butchers and murders its people on a daily basis. But it is not Syria that is a permanent standing item on the Council’s agenda; it is Israel.”

It added: “So today we are putting the Human Rights Council on notice. If things do not change, in the future we will adopt a policy of voting against all resolutions concerning Israel’s conduct in the Occupied Syrian and Palestinian Territories.”

Board of Deputies president Jonathan Arkush said: “This is a hugely significant step by the UK Government and we would like to thank the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary for showing this international leadership by ‘putting the UN Human Rights Council on notice’ about its outrageous bias against Israel.

“Human rights is not served by an body so clearly partisan that its judgements cannot be taken seriously, so the UK’s decision represents a clear victory for both fairness and human rights.”